This year I’ve been lucky enough to be invited to include pieces in two historical anthologies. One fiction, one very factual. In two of the three pieces for the editions, my forbear, William Owen Millington was the subject and the inspiration.
At last this wonderful anthology is available.
When I joined Inkslingers, I never thought I would be contributing two hist.fict stories to an anthology. How does one write a meaningful short-story that is historical fiction? So I sat and played with words and two stories emerged to creep into this anthology. So did some astonishing tales by others.
Melissa Smith’s story sent shivers down my spine. Grief is the most profound emotion. It often features in my novels in various ways and I dig into my soul and recall the feelings I had when Dad died. I think you should just read on and see what she has to say…
Life can be painful, there’s no doubt. There can be moments that halt the creative flow, moments so annihilating you wonder if you will ever get the flow back. However as Talia Jager says ‘when life hands you lemons…toss them out, grab your stash of chocolate, your writing materials, and head for the bathroom. You may just end up writing a book.’
Moving around the world can do one of two things, it seems to me. It can inspire or it can pull you apart with sadness, longing for the place you call home. Julia Crane managed to make moving work for her. It gave her the time and space she needed to create the book she had always wanted to write. Julia is an Indie Chick, another of that group of women who have not taken setbacks lightly in order to further their careers as writers. Read on…
Carol Davis Luce offered up some succint and profound words when she sent her Indie Chicks piece to Mesmered – facts that seem overlooked so often by the mainstream publishing trade.
This is what she says: ‘Agents and editors think they know what readers want. They don’t always know. Readers know what readers want, and they’re expressing their wants by buying books written by indie authors. Give yourself a hardy pat on the back if you’ve completed a manuscript, but the big applause goes to our devoted fans and readers. Without them, we would be nothing.’
Wise words. If we all gave up at the first sign of a struggle, deciding it was all to hard, then we’d be doing ourselves and our dreams no favours. Christine Kersey never gave up, she moved herself forward, writing all the time – mainstream published and then choosing to go the indie route. She’s happy with her choices and explains why…
Mel Comley is astonishing. After re-establishing her home, her life and her business in France, she became bored and began writing. And writing and writing! She has never ever looked back, or if she does, it’s purely to find added inspiration for characters and settings for her works. Read on…
The thing I like about Christine’s story is the unadulterated simplicity of an idea that happened in the blink of an eye … or more particularly, over the course of a telephone call. That and the name Lolo Productions. And of course both are linked closely. Christine iss also inventive in other ways, re-writing the fashion industry in a dark, dark way and running a magic blog that seeks to cloth the main characters in many novels. Brilliant. Simple. But then the best ideas always are.
When I first read Cheryl Bradshaw’s revelatory piece in the Indie Chicks’ Anthology, it was these words that drew my attention:
‘There were times when I felt like my life was like a shattered mirror, and I was on my hands and knees desperately searching for all the pieces of myself so I could glue them back together and feel whole again. During those times I wondered how many other women out there in the world felt the same exact way. ‘
